Forgotten Ghost | Natasha Romanoff

Chapter 84: Good To Have You Back

Warning: slight spoilers for WandaVision, but nothing that spoils the storyline.

23 days later

Almost a whole month had passed since Thanos set foot on the Earth. A month since everything had fallen apart. Every idea to reverse the snap was fruitless. Dead end after dead end.

On day three, an anxious Pepper had rang the doorbell. Katya couldn't tell her where Tony was or if he would come back, only that a woman with superpowers was looking for him through the galaxy. 

Pepper was understandably out of her mind, crying hysterically. She hadn't gone back to the house and instead stayed at the Compound, where it was both safer and where Tony would come home first. If he would come home. Because the longer it took, the more days passed, the less likely it became. A human could only go so many days without food or water. 

It had also been 23 days since Katya had last had contact with Clint, but he had gotten easy to track. Bodies started turning up a week or so after that phone call. Katya had wanted to fly out and bring him in, but his words echoed in her head. ''Leave me alone.''

The world had fallen apart overnight. With half the population gone, economies collapsed and society fell into a deep pit. There were crises everywhere, on every market. Differences became painfully clear. Instead of working together, countries blamed each other and isolated themselves. 

But the Avengers got the most hate. Katya had tried closing herself off from it, but since the news was on 24/7, it was impossible not to hear what was being said. People were mad at them for failing to protect them, calling them all kinds of names. Only a couple pointed out the fact that the Earth simply wasn't prepared for such creatures to deal with. Humans were inferior and people couldn't accept that.

To distract herself, Katya had been helping in the city. Helping people find safe places, helping kids find their family, helping lost family reunite. She left early every day and quickly turned into a hero of the city. It didn't feel like that to her. She was simply doing her duty as an Avenger, but they were beyond thankful. At least the ones who didn't yell or scream at her. It had gotten no easier to ignore them.

Katya came home late, always meeting an empty bed. Natasha didn't sleep and Katya knew she should do something about it, but she couldn't be in the Compound for long and didn't know how to help her. But when the blonde did crawl into bed and pushed her body into Katya's, everything felt right again. Until one of them woke up screaming and the other had to calm them down. 

It was so tiring and Katya found herself unable to stop her hands from trembling. They were always shaking. Working in the city was nice, but she had to be on high alert all the time and jumped at the smallest things. She did not want to name it as what it was, but she was suffering the after effects.

She did not talk to Natasha about what she saw in the city and did her best to avoid dealing with her own emotions, instead focusing on the ones of the people she was helping. 

Katya had just come home from a long day and was about to find Natasha to ask if she had dinner already, when the ground shook. Lightly at first until it the whole Compound shook. She rushed outside and ran into Steve in the lobby. Steve who had decided to shave his beard off.

''What is going on?'' he asked his friend.

But Katya didn't answer. She ran to the doors, pulled them open and ran onto the field outside. It was night, but there was no way she wouldn't have seen the bright light coming straight for the Compound.